A typical computer network environment may include storage area networks (SANs), host devices, server devices and databases. SANs are high speed networks of storage devices and switches connected to host server computer devices and are used to consolidate storage devices. A SAN includes one or more servers attached to a storage array using one or more SAN switches SAN switches connect various elements of the SAN, such as hosts and storage arrays. The SAN fabric is the network portion of the SAN. A fabric is created when one or more SAN switches are connected.
A SAN can include multiple interconnected fabrics. Fabric components can include, for example, switches, data routers, and cables using a communications protocol. Host servers may connect to the fabric through a host bus adapter (HBA). Storage devices may connect to fabric ports through storage processors. Further, databases, such as an Oracle database, are also connected to the network and communicate with the storage area networks. SANs present shared pools of storage devices to multiple servers and each of the multiple servers is able to access the storage as if the storage were directly attached to the server. SANs allow for movement of data between various storage devices, share data between multiple servers, and backup and restore data rapidly and efficiently. Sharing storage through the use of a SAN can simplify storage administration and allow for quick and easy replacement of faulty servers.
When users of a SAN detect occurrence of an incident, the users are unaware of the source of the incident. It is difficult to perform a health check for each of the individual components of a SAN and of databases connected in the computer network environment. Typically in a SAN, in order to check the health of individual components, users are required to log in to each system or component individually in order to determine its status. This process can be inconvenient and time consuming.